R.L. Stine was born on the 8th October 2943 in Columbus, Ohio. He began writing at the age of nine when he came across a typewriter in his attic, he subsequently began typing stories and joke books. Stine later moved to New York City to pursue his career as a writer after graduating from Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He worked in New York as a writer and editor and eventually landed a position at Scholastic, Inc, working on children’s magazines.

He wrote his first horror novel for young adults called Blind Date in 1986 and followed it with many other novels, this led the way to the launch of Goosebumps in 1992, which paved the way for many “nineties kids” childhoods and a whopping 200 books! We all fell for his Point Horror and Goosebumps stories here at World of Books and many are still ingrained in our imaginations, some of us remember taking the Point Horror books out of the school libraries and being unable to put them down over the weekend. They had us gripped.

Goosebumps became a literary phenomenon, the books became bestsellers across the USA and abroad, it was turned into a television series (if anyone is feeling particularly nostalgic, it is currently on Netflix). With Goosebumps fever in full swing in the nineties it turned R.L. Stine into the most successful children’s writer.

We want to wish a Happy Birthday to R. L. Stine who has provided many a childhood with a little scare. Maybe your child is currently reading one of his novels from school, do you have a favourite R.L. Stine story? Tell us in the comments below.